Police Officially Rule Murder-Suicide in McNair Case

In what ended up being more of an afterthought than a question, Nashville Police Chief Ronal Serpas officially announced today that former NFL quarterback Steve McNair was shot and killed by his 20-year-old girlfriend, Sahel Kazemi, in a murder-suicide.

The story that Serpas told the media is that there did not appear to be a struggle, and that it is believed that McNair was sleeping at the time he was shot. Gunpowder residue was found on the fingerprints of Kazemi. The report says that McNair was believed to be sleeping on the sofa when he was shot in the right temple and then twice in the chest and then in the left temple.

Kazemi then shot herself in the right temple and died. It’s being said that Kazemi attempted to shoot herself so she would fall into McNair’s lap, but she fell to the floor instead. The time of the shootings has been estimated between 1 a.m. and 1:45 a.m.

The announcement really became nothing more than a conformation of what was already known. The autopsy on Kazemi Sunday said that it was a “contact shot” that killed her, meaning that the gun was touching her head when it was fired.

Kazemi according to police had told friends that she was thinking about killing herself in the days prior to the incident. She had suspected that McNair was seeing another woman (other than his wife that is). “We believe she had recently learned that McNair was involved with another woman,” Serpas said.

McNair, who was 36, is survived by his wife, Mechelle McNair, and four sons.